MUHANGA AND THE BUMBLE BEE SHOES

Muhanga is Rwanda’s second largest city, located just one hour from the capital, which is the largest city, and an hour and a half bus ride from my town. The population is around 100,000.  I had ridden through Muhanga a few times on my way to somewhere else, but I had never stopped to explore it. Because my friend Bene and I both live in small towns, we decided to spend a day in the city of Muhanga.  

At an intersection in the center of town, one can’t help but notice this imposing statue, which recognizes the importance of the mining industry in the Muhanga District. The statue, commissioned by a Rwandan bank, is of a miner with a fistful of money.  Unfortunately, on the day I visited, someone (likely mischievous teens) had put toilet paper in the miner’s nose, proving that teenagers in Rwanda are no different from teenagers everywhere else.

Our first objective was to walk to the small Catholic chapel that sits atop a hill and can be seen from everywhere in the city. Because its architecture is so unusual, the chapel acts like a magnet drawing people like us to hike up the hill to take a closer look.  The walls are glass.  Thus, although it was closed, the chapel’s transparent walls and open design allowed us to see inside and take photographs of the beautiful black madonna which is its centerpiece.  A young woman was sitting outside on the steps. We interrupted her praying to ask the name of the chapel.  “Chapelle of our Lady of Fatima,” she replied.  The chapel is simple and very small, yet classically elegant.

I later searched the internet for something about why this charming chapel was built, but could find nothing at all on it.  On the way down the hill, we came upon this artistic gate.

Next, we tackled Muhanga’s large, crowded, colorful and chaotic outdoor market that has everything from fruits and vegetables to household goods to clothes, fabric and shoes.  Bene, being half French, found the most amazing mushrooms.  I got some cucumbers.

Bene, unlike me, is an amazing shopper and eagerly took up the challenge to help me look for a pair of simple black flat shoes for work. Shoes in Rwanda are an important status symbol, and the shoes I had brought with me for work and teaching were wearing out and starting to look shabby.  Buying shoes here is nothing like in the states. First, one doesn’t sit down and wait for a salesperson to bring boxes of shoes to you. Nor does one casually look at rows of shoes neatly grouped by sizes on racks.  Instead, here, one walks through the market checking out the displays of shoes on the ground or on a table, all styles and sizes mixed together, in each small market stall. The minute you show any interest (the slightest pause or the absent-minded touching of a shoe), the vendor bombards you with scores of shoes she or he thinks you will love.  Stall after stall of shoes beckoned us, and it seemed like there were millions of pairs of shoes to sort through – too overwhelming for me. But not for Bene.  She homed in on a pair of black flats that I might like, but they were too small. I felt like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters trying to force my foot into tight-fitting shoes to prove to the vendors that the shoes were indeed too small and that I needed a larger size.  

All of the shoes we saw used the European shoe size system and it appeared I needed a size 42, of which there was a scarcity.  However, one young man stuck to Bene and me like glue, as we roamed from stall to stall. He was what I have come to call a shopping assistant: a young man who latches onto a shopper to help them find exactly what they are looking for in the seemingly disorganized market. They are quite common. My shopping assistant was determined to find the perfect shoe for me.  Quickly gathering that Bene, not me, was the one to please, he had shown her a black patent leather shoe with a rhinestone bumble bee on the toe. Bene instantly decided that was the shoe for me, but the size was way too small. Our shopping assistant finally found a size 42 from one of the vendors, which he ecstatically presented to me, but surprisingly it was too large. So, back he went running from vendor to vendor, frantically searching for a smaller size of the bumble bee shoe.   Finally, he found a size 40.  By this time at least a dozen people were crowded around me, watching intently as I slipped my foot into the shoe.  When it fit, I felt like Cinderella.  “Aha, at last!” I grinned, and the crowd around me breathed a sigh of relief.      

I smugly thought I was a shrewd bargainer getting our shopping assistant down to half the price he originally demanded. However, later when I showed the shoes to my friend, Olivier, and his sister, they said I paid twice what I should have. We all got a big laugh out of it.

With shoes and vegetables in our backpacks, Bene and I found an out-of-the-way shop selling juice and water, so took a short break before exploring more of the town.  We walked to the edge of town and then beyond, looking for a foie gras farm that Bene had heard about. The French part of Bene impelled her to find the farm – foie gras being that outrageously expensive French delicacy produced from the fatty liver of  force-fed geese or ducks.  It seemed to me absurdly  improbable that Rwanda would have a foie gras farm, but then I remembered its Belgian colonial past and the huge influence of the French here decades ago and thought, “Why not?” As we wandered further from the city center, Bene brightened when she saw a sign for the farm, pointing down a narrow dirt road, which we immediately embarked on.  We walked at least a mile down that road but saw no evidence of the foie gras farm. I was secretly relieved, not relishing the thought of seeing force-fed ducks. Instead, we observed beautiful scenery and Rwandans hard at work in rice fields. We also stumbled upon a chicken and turkey farm and were given a quick tour by the young woman in charge of it.  But no ducks were to be found.  Failing in our goal to find the foie gras farm but having worked up a substantial appetite, we sauntered back to the city center and headed for the Muslim quarter, hoping to find some good food for lunch. We had imagined sizzling goat kebabs, but found not a single restaurant. We did, however, see an interesting mosque

and a particularly pretty house and garden.

On our way back to the bus station, hungry from walking, we stopped in the restaurant of the Splendid Hotel, hoping for a splendid lunch. Because it was late afternoon, we were the only customers.  Bene had a beef steak with a salad and fries, and I had onion soup and a cheese pizza which, compared to what I usually eat, was quite exotic. We toasted ourselves with Primus Citroen (a lemon-flavored Rwandan beer that Rwandan men eschew but Bene and I like) for having had a splendid day of sightseeing and shopping in Muhanga.

On Monday, I wore my new bumble bee shoes to work in my office.  Fanny, the young woman who cleans our offices each morning and who had never before commented on my shoes, clapped, squealed and broke out into a little dance as she spotted my sparkling new shoes. I had finally arrived in Rwanda!